30 November 2024

Why The Model Of Paralinguistic Deixis Is Theoretically Invalid

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 166):

Key PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS options are outlined in Figure 6.2 and illustrated in the following sections.


As modelled in Figure 6.2, PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS identifying an [actual] person, thing or place opens up a further choice of [self] or [other]. The feature [self] is realised through an embodied vector directed inwards towards to the speaker’s body and [other] through a vector directed outwards from the body.

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, Figure 6.2 is not a system of DEIXIS, but a classification of referents in the environment of body language. Some of the referents are distinguished in terms of deixis (self vs other, 'home' vs 'away'), but most are not (actual vs virtual, semiosis vs location, retrospective vs prospective). These inconsistencies alone invalidate the authors' model of PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS.

Moreover, the network presents referents as realised by the gestures that point to them (cf. referent 'dog' realised by reference item 'this'), and in four cases, referents are realised by the insertion (+) of a pointing gesture into some unacknowledged structure. And in one case, the feature 'virtual', the referent is realised by the structural insertion of a gesture that does not point to it (+ unresolved vector).

On the other hand, this network does model paralanguage as content and expression, so it is both content and expression that are convergent with the content of language (as in Chapter 5, but not in Chapter 4).

28 November 2024

The Confusion That Invalidates The Authors' Model Of Paralinguistic Identification/Deixis

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 165):

In spoken language a primary distinction is made between the recoverability of entities from assumed shared knowledge (homophora) and from the immediately present situation (Figure 6.1). If the latter, then recovery is either from within the text (endophora) or from outside the text (exophora). In paralanguage on the other hand, options for the recoverability of entities in discourse primarily distinguish between the feature [actual] realised through a resolved vector that is directed to visibly or sensibly (as if) present phenomena, and the feature [virtual] realised through an unresolved vector – that is, one that cannot be situationally resolved.


Blogger Comments:

[1] This misrepresents the source of this theorising, Halliday & Hasan (1976: 33):


That is, exophoric reference is situational, whereas endophoric reference is textual, as the prefixes make plain. By the same token, homophoric reference is self-specifying.

[2] This is misleading because it is untrue. As the preceding post explained, textual epilinguistic body language also distinguishes between endophoric and exophoric reference. The features 'actual' and 'virtual', on the other hand, are not types of reference, but classifications of referents. It will be seen that the authors' system of PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS is organised on the basis of this confusion, which thereby invalidates their model.

[3] In mathematics, a vector is a quantity with both magnitude (length) and direction, and a resolved vector is one that has been broken down into smaller component vectors; so an unresolved vector is one that has not been broken down into smaller component vectors. For the authors, however, 'vector' just means the direction of the pointing gesture, and its resolution is the identification of what is indicated by the pointing gesture, the referent.

[4] To be clear, if the referent of a pointing gesture (vector) is not identifiable, then the pointing gesture does not serve a reference function.

26 November 2024

Not Recognising The Distinction Between Exophoric vs Endophoric Reference In Body Language

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 164, 165):

Fundamental to the expression of identification is the formation of a vector that indicates some direction for an observer’s eye to follow. … A further point of discussion relates to the directionality of embodied vectors, in particular the contrast between pointing to something present in the physical environment or something not present (e.g. Kendon, 2004: 200). 
Observations of pointing in storytelling (e.g. Gullberg, 1998; Haviland, 2000) note that when characters (entities) or events (occurrences) are construed in a particular position in the gesturing space they may later be identified by pointing to that space. 
This strategy is also widely recognised in sign language literature. Johnston (1989: 145), for example, notes how signers ‘place imaginary persons or objects into the “scene of action” ’. Once established they may be ‘referred to as if they were actually in the assigned locations’. While no instances of this kind were identified in our data, we concur with Johnston’s interpretation. 
Where a paralinguistic entity or occurrence is first depicted in a space and that space is later pointed to, this is taken as an instance of identifying actual (as if present) phenomena.


Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the basic distinction in reference is between exophora and endophora. Applied to paralanguage (epilinguistic body language), this is the distinction between reference to the environment of paralanguage and reference to within paralanguage, respectively. 

As will be seen, most body language reference is exophoric: pointing to something present in the environment of body language. But body language reference is endophoric: anaphoric when it refers back to a meaning previously ideationally construed in body language, as in the storytelling case above (Sign is language, not paralanguage).

24 November 2024

Misrepresenting Paralinguistic Deixis And The Problem With Presuming Reference

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 162-3):

The management of information flow in discourse is supported by the system of textual semovergence we refer to as PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS. Here the focus is on how paralanguage supports the introduction of people, things and places into texts and keeps track of them once there (Martin, 1992: 95). This section begins with a brief overview of the linguistic system of IDENTIFICATION. … 
The IDENTIFICATION system in English discourse semantics draws a basic distinction between presenting reference, which introduces entities in discourse, and presuming reference, which tracks them once there. …

The types of entities (Hao, 2020a) introduced by presenting reference include people (anyone), concrete thing entities (a stripy shirt, a beautiful green scarf) and semiotic entities (some of the key things, what kind of sense, what feeling, an idea). The linguistic resources deployed include non-specific determiners (e.g. a, an, some), an indefinite nominal group (anyone) and several instances of a ‘wh’ entity (what).

Proper names also function as presuming reference.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this 'presuming reference' is Martin's rebranding of anaphoric reference (Halliday & Hasan 1976). It will be seen in later posts that the reference in the system of PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS is exophoric, not endophoric, and so does not "support" keeping track of people, things and places 'once there' in the text.

[2] To be clear, the notion of 'presenting reference' (Martin 1992) confuses referents with reference items (his, that etc.). It arises from confusing 'reference' as textual meaning with 'reference' as the ideational meaning of lexical items. Halliday & Hasan (1976: 33):


[3] To be clear, none of these resources indicate a recoverable identity elsewhere, so none of them function as reference items.

22 November 2024

Foreshadowing Problems With 'Textual Paralanguage'

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 161):

This chapter adopts a textual perspective on embodied meaning-making. It deals with the way paralanguage cooperates with spoken language in the management of information flow – how it keeps track of entities in discourse and how it composes waves of ideational and interpersonal meaning (Martin, 1992; Martin and Rose, [2003] 2007). Two linguistic discourse semantic systems are involved: IDENTIFICATION and PERIODICITY. IDENTIFICATION has to do with the resources for introducing and tracking entities. PERIODICITY, as the term implies, has to do with resources for structuring waves of information in discourse. The discourse semantic systems are introduced in turn, together with the related paralinguistic systems that model the potential for convergence with language, those of PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS and PARALINGUISTIC PERIODICITY.

 

Blogger Comments:

[1] For the theoretical problems with these discourse semantic systems in these two publications, see

[2] To be clear, Martin's discourse semantic system of IDENTIFICATION is his rebranding of the lexicogrammatical system of cohesive REFERENCE (Halliday & Hasan 1976) in which he confuses reference with deixis and ideational denotation (e.g. 'introducing entities'). It will be seen in the review of this chapter that the confusion of reference with deixis is the basis of the IDENTIFICATION (REFERENCE) system of PARALINGUISTIC DEIXIS.

[3] To be clear, Martin's discourse semantic system of PERIODICITY is his rebranding of writing pedagogy as linguistic theory, in which 'introductory paragraph' is rebranded 'macro-Theme', 'topic sentence' is rebranded 'hyper-Theme' (a misunderstanding of Daneš's term), 'paragraph summary' is rebranded 'hyper-New', and 'text summary' is rebranded 'macro-New'. it will be seen in the review of this chapter that the system proposed, PARALINGUISTIC PERIODICITY, is largely concerned with lexicogrammatical INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION, as realised through the phonological system of TONALITY. In the authors' terms, this makes the system 'sonovergent', not 'semovergent', which is contrary to their model.

20 November 2024

The Authors' Intention In Chapter 5

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 159):

Researchers from both social semiotics and linguistics (Thibault, 2004; Feng and O’Halloran, 2013; Mondada, 2016; Lim, 2019) have recently raised the challenge of developing a holistic approach to the study of social interaction. They argue persuasively that it is not sufficient to single out just one or two semiotic modes for examination (e.g. language and facial expression or language and gesture) if we are to understand the meaning of social interactions. 

The intention in this chapter is to respond to the challenge by providing a systemic functional social semiotic account of a number of paralinguistic systems as a framework for studying the orchestration of multiple semiotic modes in interaction in the expression of interpersonal meaning and the enactment of social relations in the context of animated film. 

We look forward to reports of research adapting our framework to the study of interpersonal relations in other modalities of interaction, in film, theatre, clinical, educational and forensic contexts, casual conversation and beyond, and additionally to its application in educational contexts. In relation to the latter, as an exemplary animation of its kind, Coraline offers a significant educational resource.


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the extent to which the authors have succeeded in responding to this challenge can be gauged by carefully considering all the posts that examine this chapter (here).

[2] To be clear, the representations of body language on clay puppets by animators using the emotion-face coding system of Ekman are not instances of the system of human body language, and so do not constitute valid data for theorising.

[3] To be clear, the authors' framework is their misunderstanding of Cléirigh's framework.

18 November 2024

Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of Paralinguistic Engagement

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 157, 158):


A final analytical step involves an exploration of PARALINGUISTIC ENGAGEMENT and features of [heteroglossic:contraction] and [heteroglossic:expansion]. Relevant here are shifts in body posture in the sequence of four images. In the first image (the angry stomp), the upper body and head are in a prone (closed) position. The torso remains prone in the second and third images, at the same time as the head/face is progressively raised from prone to neutral in the final image. These realisations of [contraction] are accompanied in the second and third images with realisations of [heteroglossic:expansion] – as Coraline moves her arms and hands to an open supine position by her sides, and in addition raises her eyes in the third image

In the final image in (30), Coraline’s face continues to express [anger]. Although she stands upright, her posture is prone in certain respects – her shoulders are rounded, her arms are close to her body and her hands are clasped, closing off her torso (enacting [contraction]). At the same time, however, her head and face are decentred – an expression of [heteroglossic:expansion] (Hao and Hood, 2019).

The apparently disjunctive concatenation of options in PARALINGUISTIC ENGAGEMENT needs to be interpreted in relation to the attendant semovergence. From the perspective of affiliation, as discussed earlier, the rhetorical question in the spoken text functions as a firm rejection of Wybie’s tendered coupling; it is this discourse move that resonates with the prone features of Coraline’s posture – those realising [contraction]. At the same time the supine features of her posture – those realising [expansion] – open up space for ongoing interaction and the negotiation of other potential bonds. The semiotic resources of the body negotiate relations on two fronts simultaneously – retrospective [contraction] and [prospective expansion].

 

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, in terms of ENGAGEMENT, the question If I'm a water witch, then where's my secret well is an instance of [heteroglossic: contraction: disclaim]. Martin & White (2003: 118):

Under disclaim we cover those formulations by which some prior utterance or some alternative position is invoked so as to be directly rejected, replaced or held to be unsustainable.

Given that there is no heteroglossic expansion instantiated in language, the authors are faced with the contradiction that the representation of body language on the clay puppet also realises [expansion], according to their model. The authors' solution is to interpret the expansion gestures as opening up space for further dialogue.

However, this interpretation is clearly inconsistent with the meanings being enacted at this point in the text, especially in light of the fact that, of the two types of expansion [entertain] and [attribute], the only option open to body language here would be [entertain] . Martin & White (2003: 104):

We begin with what we term ‘entertain’ – those wordings by which the authorial voice indicates that its position is but one of a number of possible positions and thereby, to greater or lesser degrees, makes dialogic space for those possibilities. …

Under the heading of ‘attribution’, we deal with those formulations which disassociate the proposition from the text’s internal authorial voice by attributing it so some external source.

Clearly, then where's my secret well is not making dialogic space for other possibilities. This suggests that there are serious problems with the authors' model of PARALINGUISTIC ENGAGEMENT.

16 November 2024

Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of A Discourse Move

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 156, 157-8):

In Coraline’s first encounter with Wybie, a boy of her own age from the same neighbourhood, he accuses her of being a water witch to which she responds: //3 ^ and if / I’m a / water / witch //1 ^ then / where’s the secret / well //. The focus in (30) is on the second tone group of this utterance, that is, //1 ^ then / where’s the secret / well //. … 

In the spoken language of this tone group there is apparently no resonant inscribed or invoked linguistic AFFECT. However, before we assume a divergent semovergent relation, there is more to be considered in the verbal and imagic co-text. 

The spoken language in (30) configures a question through a wh- interrogative on a falling tone 1 (signalling ‘certainty’). Taken in conjunction with the PARALINGUISTIC expressions [anger], this discourse move (then where’s the secret well) can be interpreted as a rhetorical question, one that challenges Wybie’s judgemental accusation that she is a water witch. From the perspective of affiliation and the negotiation of bonds (Section 5.3.4), Coraline is forcefully rejecting the coupling proposed by Wybie.


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the 'certainty' realised by tone 1 is 'polarity known'. Halliday (1994: 302):

[2] This misunderstands both the text and the notion of a rhetorical question. A rhetorical question is one that does not demand information from an addressee. The question then where’s the secret well is not rhetorical, because demands from the addressee the information that would validate the proposition that she is a water witch.

14 November 2024

Problems With The Authors' Analysis Of The Resonance Of Affect And Force

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 156, 157):

In Coraline’s first encounter with Wybie, a boy of her own age from the same neighbourhood, he accuses her of being a water witch to which she responds: //3 ^ and if / I’m a / water / witch //1 ^ then / where’s the secret / well //. The focus in (30) is on the second tone group of this utterance, that is, //1 ^ then / where’s the secret / well //. … 



The first image in (30) captures Coraline forcefully stomping her right foot and punching down with her arms and clenched hands in an expression of PARALINGUISTIC AFFECT – [anger] with [strong] FORCE. The voice quality on where realises VOICE AFFECT as [anger] – through high intensity, tension and roughness (shown as the grey area in the spectrogram in (30)). Coraline’s face is not visible in the first image; but a prosody of FACIAL AFFECT [anger] is additionally realised more or less intensively in the remaining three images – as the eyebrows are drawn down and together. These expressions of PARALINGUISTIC FORCE in realisations of [anger] resonate with and amplify one another.


Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the depiction of body language on an animated clay puppet is not body language, but an epilinguistic construal of body language, because the representation of body language on an animated clay puppet requires the prior development of language in the animator; it is not something that a dog or cat, for example, could do.

In considering the body language that is thus epilinguistically depicted:

[1] As previously explained, the beating of the foot and arms realises textual salience, and is linguistic, like the beats of speech. Here the authors again misconstrue this textual salience as interpersonal force (and as epilinguistic instead of linguistic).

[2] As previously explained, the bodily expression of emotion is protolinguistic, and so pre-metafunctional, because it does not require the prior evolution and development of language, as demonstrated by Darwin's work on the expression of emotions in other animal species. Here, however, the authors misconstrue the expression of emotion as requiring the prior evolution and development of language (epilinguistic) and locate it within the interpersonal metafunction, regardless of whether or not it is used to evaluate.

[3] To be clear, as the above demonstrates, the "resonance" here is between the protolinguistic expression of emotion (which other animals can do) and the linguistic expression of salience (which other animals cannot do).

12 November 2024

The Claim That The Face Does Not Express Desire

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 152, 156):

The possibility of different paralinguistic resources being instantiated simultaneously allows us to infer meanings not necessarily interpretable from an expression in a single paralinguistic mode. For example, FACIAL AFFECT has no distinct option for the expression of desire. However, when raised eyebrows and wide-opened eyes (realising FACIAL AFFECT as [surprise]) are expressed convergently with PARALINGUISTIC PROXIMITY as [personal] and PARALINGUISTIC ORIENTATION as [involved], the emotion of desire is strongly invoked. Two such instances are described in (29).



Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is a serious omission in the authors' model. The bodily expression of desire is enshrined in Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look

and at least one of the following facial expressions might reasonably be construed as expressing desire:


[2] To be clear, the authors' claim here is that a personal, involved expression of surprise "invokes" (i.e. evokes) an expression of desire. In contrast, none of the desiring faces above look at all surprised.

10 November 2024

Problems With The System Of Paralinguistic Power

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 150-1):

Social relations of relative POWER in images relate to the vertical angle of viewing in Kress and van Leeuwen (2006). In Painter et al. (2013) it relates to the vertical positioning of one character’s body in relation to another. In van Leeuwen (1999), POWER is also discussed as an aspect of interpersonal meaning afforded by the voice; the higher in pitch and the louder the voice is, the more dominant the speaker. The system of PARALINGUISTIC POWER in Figure 5.17 opposes features of equal and unequal on a cline and realised through the vertical positioning of bodies in relation to each other. The features of relative pitch and loudness are not identified as realisations in Figure 5.17.



Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the claim here is that the loud, high-pitched cry of a depicted child is dominant, whereas the soft, low pitch of the depicted child's adult male teacher is subordinated. This is also indirectly at odds with the fact that female newsreaders are trained to lower the pitch of their voice in presenting authoritative stories of events.

[2] To be clear, the claim here is that a depicted head of a tall person is dominant, whereas a depicted head of a short person is subordinated, and a depicted teacher and student of the same height are equal in power.

[3] On the contrary.

[4] Like previous systems in this chapter, the system in Figure 5.17 models paralanguage as a bi-stratal semiotic system, and although this is consistent with the notion of a semiotic system, it is inconsistent with the preceding chapters in which paralanguage is misunderstood as an expression-only semiotic system. Where in previous chapters it was just paralinguistic expression that was semovergent with language, in this chapter it is both paralinguistic content and expression that is semovergent with language.

08 November 2024

The Contextual Dependence Of The Meaning Of Body Orientation

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 149):

Greater or lesser involvement is realised through the horizontal angle between the characters and the presence or absence of accompanying gaze. At one end the features [involved] indicates maximum involvement though face-to-face orientation accompanied by mutual gaze. At the other end of the continuum there is an absence of involvement; the interlocutors share no gaze and have a widely oblique or even back-to-back orientation in relation to each other. Between these endpoints, body (and head) angle varies and involvement with the other may be enhanced by direct gaze or weakened by a lack of it. An oblique angle to another realises a [less involved] or relatively detached orientation, while face-to-back indicates [involvement sought] or a desire to engage and back-to-back indicates [uninvolved] or thorough disengagement. A side-by-side orientation on the other hand realises a solidarity relation but yet [less involved]. Note that the head and the body can be angled relatively independently so there are more points on the continuum than actually specified here.


Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the 'involvement' meanings of these body orientations depend crucially on context. For example, consider the "solidarity" of two strangers sitting side-by-side on public transport or in a waiting room, or the "involvement sought" of two strangers face-to-back in a queue, or in former times, of "uninvolved" orientation of two duellists standing back-to-back before trying to kill each other.

06 November 2024

A Problem With The System Of Paralinguistic Orientation

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 149, 150):

Analogising from Kress and van Leeuwen’s account of viewer/depiction relations referred to as INVOLVEMENT, Painter et al. (2013) propose a system of body ORIENTATION as an additional means for interpreting relations between depicted characters in images. Figure 5.16 shows options in a system of PARALINGUISTIC ORIENTATION and how they are relatively positioned as degrees of involvement.



Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, Kress and van Leeuwen’s original system is construed in terms of content (INVOLVEMENT), whereas the authors' rebranding of it is construed in terms of expression (ORIENTATION).

[2] To be clear, the system in Figure 5.16 models paralanguage as a bi-stratal semiotic system, and although this is consistent with the notion of a semiotic system, it is inconsistent with the preceding chapters in which paralanguage is misunderstood as an expression-only semiotic system. Where in previous chapters it was just paralinguistic expression that was semovergent with language, in this chapter it is both paralinguistic content and expression that is semovergent with language.

04 November 2024

Not Acknowledging The Intellectual Source Of 'Paralinguistic Proximity'

 Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 147-8):

Opposing features in the system of PARALINGUISTIC PROXIMITY are: [personal], realised through close body positioning of characters vis-à-vis one another; [social] as realised through greater separation of the characters within a picture frame; and [impersonal] through distanced separation of the characters. These features are presented along a cline of PARALINGUISTIC PROXIMITY in Figure 5.15.


Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the unacknowledged intellectual source of the features of the authors' system of PARALINGUISTIC PROXIMITY is Edward T. Hall (1963):

Hall described the interpersonal distances of humans (the relative distances between people) in four distinct zones: 


A chart depicting Edward T. Hall's interpersonal distances

[2] To be clear, the system in Figure 5.15 models paralanguage as a bi-stratal semiotic system, and although this is consistent with the notion of a semiotic system, it is inconsistent with the preceding chapters in which paralanguage is misunderstood as an expression-only semiotic system. Where in previous chapters it was just paralinguistic expression that was semovergent with language, in this chapter it is both paralinguistic content and expression that is semovergent with language.

02 November 2024

Not Acknowledging The Intellectual Source Of 'Social Distance' And 'Proximity'

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 147):

Kress and van Leeuwen’s system of SOCIAL DISTANCE (2006) relates to the constructed social relation between viewer and depicted person and is realised through shot size (e.g. close-up versus long shot). Painter et al. (2013) adapt this notion of relative distance to refer to the constructed social relation between depicted characters within images as PROXIMITY.  


Blogger Comments
:

To be clear, unacknowledged by the authors, the intellectual source of both Kress and van Leeuwen’s system of SOCIAL DISTANCE (2006) and the adaptation of their notion by Painter et al. (2013) as PROXIMITY is the work on proxemics by Edward T. Hall, published in 1963):

Edward T. Hall, the cultural anthropologist who coined the term in 1963, defined proxemics as "the interrelated observations and theories of humans' use of space as a specialised elaboration of culture". In his foundational work on proxemics, The Hidden Dimension, Hall emphasised the impact of proxemic behavior (the use of space) on interpersonal communication.

More specifically, both derive from the application of Edward T. Hall's proxemics to cinema. The work of Painter et al. (2013) derives from character proxemics, and the work of Kress and van Leeuwen derives from camera proxemics: